《红楼梦》成书于18世纪中叶，是中国伟大的一部古典长篇小说。它描写了一个由盛而衰的贵族大家庭中的爱情婚姻悲剧，并以此为中心展开了一幅广阔而生动的社会历史生活画面，塑造出贾宝玉、林黛玉等众多光彩夺目、令人难以忘怀的人物形象。《红楼梦》以其宏大精致的小说结构，博大精深的文化内涵，以及出色的语言艺术，被公认为中国古典小说艺术的高峰。
  
  本译系中国著名的文学翻译家杨宪益、戴乃迭夫妇所译，它是一部*接近原著的《红楼梦》英文全译本。
  
  A Dream of Red Mansions is China’s greatest full-length classical novel. It is a tragic love story set against the background of the decline of an aristocratic family. With this as its central theme, the novel unfolds a vast and moving panorama of social history. It also parades a memorable and dazzling cast of characters. The wide-raging and meticulous structure of A Dream of Red Mansions, together with its literary merit in the form of exquisite language, make it universally recognized as the epitome of the art of the classical novel in China.A Dream of Red Mansions was written in the mid-18th century and was ten years in the making. The present translation, by China’s leading literary translation team of Yang Xianyi and his wife Gladys Yang, is the version most complete and most faithful to the original.